US President lifts Cuba restrictions

Since Obama’s election, majorities in Congress have voted to ease the 50-year embargo on Cuba.(Photo: Steve Knight)

WASHINGTON, United States, April 14, 2009 - Fulfilling a key campaign promise, United States President Barack Obama yesterday lifted all restrictions on Cuban-Americans to wanting to visit their homeland and send money to family members there.

In an executive order, Obama also authorised US telecommunications companies to apply for licences to do business in Cuba in what the White House described as an effort to increase the flow of information to the Cuban people.

In addition, current limits on the kinds and quantity of humanitarian-related goods that can be sent to Cuba from the US will also be eased, according to the order which marked the first substantive changes in Washington's policy toward the Caribbean island since Obama became president nearly three months ago.

The moves, coming on the eve of the Fifth Summit of the Americas to be held in Trinidad and Tobago later this week, were welcomed by organisations and activists that have long called for concrete steps to lift the nearly 50-year-old US trade embargo against Cuba. But some expressed disappointment that Obama did not go further.

“These are welcome steps, but the right course is to allow all Americans to travel to Cuba, to open up commerce, and to directly engage the Cuban government in diplomacy and solving problems in both countries' interests,” said Sarah Stephens, director of the Centre for Democracy in the Americas (CDA).

“The president has a historic opportunity, not to be the last president of the Cold War, but the first president to turn the page in US-Cuba relations. I think he will do more, and that this will be the first of many steps toward better relations with Cuba,” she added.

At the same time, hard-line anti-Castro Cuban Americans deplored Obama's decision.

“President Obama has committed a serious mistake by unilaterally increasing Cuban-American travel and remittance dollars for the Cuban
dictatorship,” said Florida Republican Representatives, Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Mario Diaz-Balart.

“Unilateral concessions to the dictatorship embolden it to further isolate, imprison and brutalise pro-democracy activists, to continue to dictate which Cubans and Cuban-Americans are able to enter the island, that this unilateral concession provides the dictatorship with critical financial support,” the two brothers said.

Other more moderate Cuban-American lawmakers, including Florida Republican Senator Mel Martinez, echoed the Diaz-Balarts' concern that the government of President Raul Castro will benefit financially, especially by the lifting of limits to Cuban-American remittances, but also stressed that Obama's decision was good news for Cuban families separated by the lack of freedom in Cuba and should provide help to families in need.

Since Obama’s election, majorities in Congress have voted to ease the 50-year embargo on Cuba.

In an omnibus appropriations bill approved last month, they prohibited
the Treasury Department, which enforces key provisions in the embargo, from spending any money to enforce limits on the travel to Cuba by Cuban Americans. Legislators also authorised the granting of a general license for travel to Cuba for US companies that wish to sell agricultural and medical goods there. Both moves had the effect of repealing restrictions imposed by former president George W Bush.

Legislation that was introduced in both houses of Congress last month – the Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act - would extend to all US citizens the right to travel to Cuba and is considered to have a better than even chance of passage by the end of the fiscal year, September 30. (Adapted from IPS)